The 1893 Massacre at Hornkranz and the Birth of Colonial Resistance in German South-West Africa

    In 1884, as winter approached Berlin, in Germany, delegates from fourteen (14) western countries attended a conference organised by the German chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, that would irrevocably change the lives of millions of people on the African continent - for worse.

    The infamous Berlin Conference of 1884 - 1885 precipitated the ''Scramble for Africa'' with disastrous consequences for the peoples, wildlife, and natural resources of the continent. 

    Amid wild rumours of unimaginable wealth, cheap land, Lebensraum, and ''barbarous'', heathen, native populations, eight (8) European nations struggling with large populations, low morale, and poorly performing economies were sufficiently motivated to furthering their narrow interests in Africa.   

    In 1887, a German cartographer and geographer, Curt von Francois, was despatched to South West Africa as a ''research officer'' after completing a tour of the Kasai River in the Congo. He was tasked with establishing a settlement on behalf of Kaiser Wilhelm II, for which Von Francois selected Jan Jonker Afrikaner's settlement, Windhoek, and he was tasked with developing a harbour, for which Von Francois chose a small coastal inlet near the Tsoaxaub (Swakop River), north of the natural harbour at Walvis Bay which had been annexed by Britain. 

    Germany focused primarily on its colonies in other parts of Africa, namely Burundi, Cameroon, Rwanda, Tanganyika (Tanzania) and Togo. It approached the ethnic groups in South West Africa under the guise of ''protector'' and declared the area a ''protectorate''. Curt von Francois was instructed to sign protection treaties with ethnic groups in South West Africa, despite Germany's inadequate military presence in the area.    

    In 1885, the Basters at |anes (''smoke place'' / renamed Rehoboth) signed a protection treaty with Von Francois, followed by the Ovaherero and smaller Nama sub-tribes. After Hendrik Witbooi of the |Khowesin at Gibeon refused to sign a protection treaty, Schutztruppen (guard troops) and Basters under the command of Von Francois attacked Witbooi's settlement at Hornkranz on early on the morning of 12 April 1893, and killed eighty-eight (88) Nama women, children, and elderly people, who were also members of various Nama sub-tribes such as the Great Dead (Groot Doden), Hide-shoe Wearers (Velskoendraers), and Swartboois. 

    In a tersely worded, emotional letter to Hermanus van Wyk, captain of the Basters at |anes, Witbooi asked for Van Wyk's assistance and support in resistance, after the massacre at Hornkranz:

    ''Captain von Francois attacked us early in the morning while we were sleeping unsuspectingly, and while I was trying to protect my people, we were unable to drive them back. The captain invaded the camp and ruined it in such a brutal way as I could never imagine a member of a civilised White nation capable of - a nation that knows the rules and ways of warfare. 

    ''But this man robbed me, killing little children on their mothers' breasts, and older children, women and men. The bodies of the people killed were burned inside the grass huts, their bodies burnt to ashes. With pertinence and terribly harsh action Captain von Francois did his work, in a shameless operation. 

    ''As far as I am concerned, the Germans set fire to this whole country in order to crush the whole of Hereroland and Namaqualand, so as to possess our entire land, and to make us their subjects and their slaves. 

    ''So, dear brother, get up, let us oppose the Germans for the cause of our country and our nations. It is an attack on us all. 

    ''Come to my aid, dear brother, with weapons, such as guns, a keg of gunpowder, and Martini Henry shells and lead. As you know, the Germans stopped my arms supply, and now that I am unarmed, they attack me.

    ''Please let me hear from you soon.''

    Hermanus van Wyk ignored Hendrik Witbooi's letter. Two (2) years later, in 1895, the Basters signed a military agreement with the Germans and pledged 50 to 100 men, annually, to German colonial forces.

    In an annexure to a letter Hendrik Witbooi wrote to the English magistrate at Walvis Bay after the massacre at Hornkranz, one of Witbooi's senior officers, Petrus Jefta, stated:

    ''I am one of Hendrik Witbooi's people. I was on Hornkranz on the 12th of April. The captain was there with his people: men, women and children. 

    ''A while before sunrise, the German soldiers started shooting at us and stormed into the place. There were three groups. 

    ''When we heard the shooting, we ran out of the houses. We had no chance to resist, but fled. The men came out, but the women had no chance, they got confused with the soldiers. The captain's son, his cousin, and three men were shot near the church, when they came out of the captain's house. 

    ''The captain's son was first only wounded and ran down to the river, but the soldiers chased him and shot him through the head. 

    ''The captain's sister-in-law and his daughter-in-law were shot dead at the same time. Around the captain's house and the church I counted 33 dead women. They were all shot. I saw how some of these women were shot dead by the soldiers. 

    ''The German officers were outside while the soldiers inside the village shot the people. They shouted orders and the shooting stopped. They then arrested one of the elders of the church and tied him to the ox wagon. 

    ''Two other men and I climbed on a hill and saw the women hiding away. We called them to run away but they stayed there until the Germans came by. One of the Germans shot one of these women. The others pleaded for their lives and asked the Germans to rather make slaves of them than to kill them. The soldiers then took them away by pushing them in front of them.''

    The surviving women and children were taken to a concentration camp near the German fort (Alte Feste) in |ae||gams (Windhoek), Hendrik Witbooi's wife and daughters among them. Witbooi and his fighters fled to a settlement in the Naukluft Mountains where they remained until Witbooi signed a protection treaty with Curt von Francois' successor, Theodor Leutwein.

    Very little information is available today about the Hornkranz massacre of 1893 that started the anti-colonial resistance movement in German South-West Africa (GSWA / Deutsch-südwestafrika) because in April, 1945, towards the end of the Second World War (WWII), Allied forces completely destroyed the Schutztruppe Archives while bombing Potsdam, a city bordering Berlin, Germany.

***

    References: 

1. Kaptein Hendrik Witbooi Mural in Kurfürstenstraße, Berlin, by Roberto Uribe Castro (2019)
2. The German Attack on the Witboois at Hornkranz, Namibia, April 1893, Piet van Rooyen, Professor emeritus, School of Military Science, University of Namibia, South African Journal of Military Studies, Vol. 49, Nr 1, 2021.
3. The Hendrik Witbooi Papers (2nd enlarged edition), A. Heywood, E. Maasdorp, National Archives of Namibia